New apartment Internet has no port forwarding, admin login
Pro: 1Gb upload and download speeds on free Internet provided by the HOA.
Con: As a self hoster, I have zero control over it. No port forwarding, no DMZ, no bridge mode. It's Starbucks free WiFi with a wired connection.
Option A: Buy Google Fiber and don't use free Internet.
Option B: Create some elaborate tunnel through a VPS.
My public self hosted activities are fairly low bandwidth (password manager, SSH). I have a vague idea that I could point my domain to a low cost VPS that has a VPN tunnel into my home network for any incoming connection needs. That may require me to fill in port forwards on both systems but whatever. Tailscale is serving most of my remote needs but I still need a few ports. This does not fix the issue of online gaming port forwards (Nintendo Switch online requires a huge forwarded range for best performance) but oh well for now.
UPDATE: I think they're using this system. https://www.cambiumnetworks.com/markets/multi-family-living/ The personal Wi-Fi overview makes it clear each AP is given it's own VLAN which sounds a whole lot like the whole building is sharing one IP and there's no way I'm going to get my own Internet access. They even detail how you can roam the building and maintain your WiFi connection across your neighbor's and the common areas APs. This is the IPV4 future.
I have been using it for the last 3 months to expose services from my home internet (plex, wireguard, etc.) through a VPS and I'm pretty happy with it. It's relatively simple to set up, I haven't had any outages so far, and it's nice that it supports UDP port forwarding as well as TCP (for wireguard).
The setup is very strange. They don't provide a router. They took the old phone lines going to each unit (which appears to have been done in Cat5 decades ago) and put an RJ-45 end on it. That plugs into a POE powered wireless access point with two more ports on it. Plugging my laptop in, the gateway does not respond to HTTP requests. The tech who installed it said I have to call the home office to change my wireless password. I got them to disable the wireless so I could put my router on the other end but I'm either running on a network that my shady small time ISP has full control over or I'm behind a double NAT. Speeds were 900+ up and down though.
I might see if I can get the AP re-enabled and let the switch connect to it directly if that even fixes the Switch's NAT issues.
Sorry you have to deal with this. I know it wasn't in your list of options, but you could attend HOA meetings, bring up the internet issue and see if they'll change the current setup, or you could get elected to an HOA board and start pulling the strings of change. That's more of a long-term goal though.
Set up a cheap VPS on DigitalOcean or the like, and run a Tailscale exit node. Put Tailscale on your devices at home (or get a 2nd router that allows you to run Tailscale on it) and join them to the same Tailnet. That’s the easiest way to accomplish this without getting too far into the weeds.
I have personally gone the VPN route with wireguard. Right now I have it setup so that all of my servers connect to my wireguard server on the VPS. Then I simply either just point my reverse proxy at the wireguard IP address or setup a forwarding rule in IP tables. Also try to get a VPS that is located close as it will reduce the ping times if that is important to you.
I also recommend that you keep services which you only need to like ssh not forwarded and either use tailscale or wireguard to connect when you need to.
With regards to the switch it is theoretically possible to setup a special access point with port forwarding through a VPN but it is much more complicated. It might be easier to accomplish this with a more traditional VPN service as some providers specifically cater to individuals looking to use a VPN for online play.
Option b of course, rent cheapest vps, ionos.ca offers plans for 2$ per month, it'll be cheaper than Google fiber, you can also use sshuttle https://github.com/sshuttle/sshuttle on your openwrt router and connect everything to it be it by cable or wireless, then Nintendo gaming will also have that port forwarding because your whole traffic is going to go through vps
I’m currently running option B since I had the same issue where I was living when I built my server. I have a DigitalOcean vps and an openvpn tunnel between that and my home server, and the vps just forwards and masquerades all traffic. I’ve definitely had issues with speeds, and in the past it’s fluctuated so could’ve been an issue with something besides the vpn. It’s been a while since I’ve used it for streaming or game servers, but last I remember the speed wasn’t too bad. Playing factorio there was some noticeable latency but still playable although other games might not work as well. I’ve also done self-hosted broadcasts using owncast and that worked fine.
It depends on the app. Yes, I could run my password manager on the VPS since that takes up virtually no space or bandwidth. The odd IP camera needs to be local, the Minecraft server with mods needs local CPU power and RAM (presumably).
Storage size, privacy, security, operating cost…I can think of several reasons. I use a cheap vps to help me route traffic to my ebook server, and I don’t have to pay for extra storage on the vps to hold all my comic books, which can be quite large when scanned in HD.
I would do option A, but instead of just not using the free internet, I would use it for everything else not needing server services. So like streaming or general browsing.
Just leaving the Google fiber as a dedicated pipe for all my self hosted services
I just got a Ubiquti Dream Machine that can do fail over so the other connection won't be completely wasted but $70 per month could be saved by finding another way.